The Draenic Dream
The Draenic Dream is the story of the Order came to be allied with the draenic people and how Zania obtained her massive draenic maul Exz on a diplomatic assignment to the Exodar. The events in this story take place shortly after the Grand Betayal. Gathering Allies Shortly after the Grand Betayal the Order found themselves without the aid of their old allies. As a result, the only draenei in the Order, Zania left to discuss an alliance with the leader of her people, the Prophet Velen. Zania had long wondered if she should leave to discuss things with Velen, she had not been in great standing with her people, after leaving them years prior to join a multi-racial paladin Order, made up of mortals. She did however see no other way for the Order to gain allies, and left Hearthglen very early. In draenic culture it's not common to say good-bye before leaving, so without thinking much about it, Zania left on her own, without telling anyone about it. Zania called upon her Exarch's Elekk and her trusty companion, even after months in the wild responded faithfully. The two of them immediately took off, and roade to the south, first through Aerie Peak, where the Wildhammer Clan resides, then down through the Highlands, to Arathi, crossing the Thandrol Span, and finally, after nearly two weeks of travelling day and night, she made it to the sorry remains of Menethil Habor, where she was able to find a ship bound for Auberdine, a destination close to home. The ship did not depart for another few days, so she rented a room in the inn, where she met an old friend of the Order, Damith. The priest had as usual got himself into trouble, as he wasn't sure where the new Headquarters of the Order was located, he had tried asking some dwarves for help, but having never been outside the sanctuary of Elwynn Forest, he did not quite understand the Northern accents of the Dwarves, and they didn't understand him. Zania sat down and had a meal with him, gave him directions to the new headquarters, and sent him on his way. The next day Zania spent at the Blacksmiths' cleaning her armour and weapons, and preparing for a long jouney at sea. Chaos in Hearthglen While Zania was travelling chaos errupted back at the Order. Vindicator Zania had gone missing, and the leadership of the Order was turning every stone to find her. Upon receiving word that a prominent member of the Order had gone missing, rumours about how she might have disappeared instantly started. Some claimed to have seen strange lights errupting from JJay's study late at night, and some even ventured to suggest that JJay may have lured Zania into some sort of trap, to sacrifice her to his demon masters. When the paladins of the Order heard of this, they instantly demanded that a thorough search was to be done of JJay's chambers, and Eranicus and Swigs (thinking back to what JJay had tried to do during the Aszhara Assignment) concurred. After banging loudly on JJay's door and getting no answer they finally broke it down, and found JJay sleeping tight at the other end of the room. On the middle of the floor was drawn a large summoning circle, and the room smelled heavily of sulfur and perfume. At the other end of the room was made a gorgeous table with two candles and the remains of a magnificent dinner. Swigs and Eranicus woke up JJay, told him to get dressed and dragged him to the dungeon for questioning. Here they chained him and bound him with arcane binds (more a symbolic act, seeing as they weren't really frightened of neither JJay's brawn nor brains). Swigs and Eranicus questioned JJay for hours, and asked him about what he had done the other night. JJay insisted that he had gone to bed alone the night before and had no idea about what had happened to Zania. To Eranicus and Swigs it was obvious though: JJay had asked Zania to come over for dinner, with the intention of poisoning her, summoning a demon and sacrificing her to the demon in return for more power, all of this explained everything, right down to the scent of perfume, which must've obviously been Zania's. The only unanswered question was why Zania had accepted the invite in the first place, but then again, the draenei were a puzzling people. JJay kept on insisting that nothing of the sort had happened, and yet he refused to talk about what he had done on the night of Zania's disappearance, his answers ranging from having dinner with his imaginary childhood friend Tibbers to training Vazeelvegen and yet other answers involved him taking a midnight walk in the woods. Eranicus and Swigs were puzzled, and decided to keep him in the dungeon before taking more drastic matters in hand. Arrival in Auberdine After a week at sea, Zania arrived in Auberdine, the Night Elf boats were swift as dolphins, and it had always impressed her how quickly Night Elves were able to travel over water. As she stepped onto solid ground she suddenly felt a strong urge to get to the Exodar and back home. She took a room at the Auberdine inn, and made arrangements to have a hippogryph fly her the rest of the way home. Already the next day, the Auberdinian hippogryph master gave her a hippogryph and she was on her way. After about six hours of flying she could faintly see the Exodar on the horizon, after another hour her hippogryph landed safely on the ground and she leapt off it's back and walked it to the caretaker in the Exodar. A Not-So-Warm Welcome Upon walking through the massive opening down into the Exodar, Zania noticed that the guards avoided eye contact with her, and everyone she passed on the corridors of the Exodar walked around her in a large circle. As she walked by the Seat of the Naaru and towards the Vault of the Lights, she suddenly got an eerie feeling, as though she saw someone she had long abandoned. Meeting with Velen turned out to be as much trouble as Zania had anticipated, the for the prophet was being very difficult, and reported to Zania that Velen would have the time to see her in two weeks time. Zania was expecting that something like this would happen, and though she felt unfairly treated, she accepted the appointment, and went to the inn to get a room to stay in. As she was soon to discover, the inn was full (although to Zania it seemed like a ghost town, and all the keys were hanging behind the innkeeper), she bought some supplies and decided to try her luck outside of the Exodar. Zania travelled several hours by Elekk across Azuremyst Isle towards Azure Watch, a small town established to train new dreanei for military service. Here the inn was also full, and Zania decided she had had enough, and bought a tent. It was almost midday, and she had to hurry if she was to make it somewhere hospitable to make camp. Zania decided to travel North and into the woods of Azuremyst. She made camp in a clearing by a small creek, and started to prepare her dinner. Zania stayed in this clearing for several days with nothing of very great consequence happening, she went hunting, fishing and inbetween she was currently reading a book that Eranicus had recommended her, apparently written by some human bigshot called Uther. So far Zania mostly read it for the comedic value of reading how little humans know about the Light.﻿